Being my travels down those great two lane highways of this nation as well as news I learn about them from media sources. Since I'm also very interested in historic preservation, there will be a lot of that as well.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

I decided to stop at the Vinyl Revolution on my way to the McHenry Civil War Round Table discussion group meeting in Crystal Lake and left early. Unfortunately, the line was already around the corner and the place wasn't yet open. And, I really hate lines.

I hate lines, so continued on my way to Crystal Lake. I was running early, so stopped at McDonald's for a breakfast biscuit and then went to the Barnes & Noble bookstore on Northwest Highway (US-14) and bought a Blue & Gray magazine featuring the Battle of Bentonville and the Russian Navy and World War II magazine featuring the Sullivan Brothers.

One thing that does my heart good is seeing all the vinyl records they now sell. Sadly, though, they are all in the $20+ range, more than I like to pay. I went through Barnes & Nobles's sale CDs, but didn't buy any.

Then, it was on to Panera Bread for the discussion group. Today's topic was April 1865.

Monday, April 24, 2017

This is a day I look forward to every year as it does my heart good to see there are still a few of us out there who still like our old vinyl albums (although I must admit I like CDs better and play them way more often). There is just something about flipping through albums and looking for that special treasure. Who knows if you're going to find it or not? It's a real treasure hunt.

And, I almost forgot about it until I was listening to Chicago's WXRT, 93.1 FM, and they mentioned it. Sure glad they did. I was going through some e-mail alerts for the blogs in preparation for driving to Crystal Lake, Illinois, for the McHenry County Civil War Round Table discussion group meeting about events of April 1865. WXRT, starting at noon and going to midnight, also played nothing but vinyl albums in honor of the Record Store Day.

That means, I will drive right by my local mom and pop record store, The Vinyl Revolution, in McHenry, Illinois. I even left early to go to the discussion group, only to find the store not opening until 9 a.m., and the line already stretching along the sidewalk and around the corner.

Friday, April 21, 2017

MARCH 19-- Chuck Berry died in St. Louis at age 90. A real big reason we still have rock and roll.

MARCH 22-- Ruby Street Bridge in Joliet, Illinois, will be undergoing months of repairs. It is a classic bridge, built in 1935, rehabilitated in 1972 and 2011. It is 400 feet long and crosses the Des Plaines River.

A real pretty bridge.

MARCH 24-- Pontiac, Illinois, to get a new museum. It will be the Basketball Museum of Illinois which has gotten the green light in town and will open late 2017 or 2018. It will cover all things basketball in the state. And that will no doubt include Herbron, Illinois, whose small high school shocked everyone back in the early 1950s when they won the state championship.

It will be in a closed K-Mart store and will be operated by the Illinois Basket ball Coaches Association Plans call for it to be next door to a planned Route 66 Museum of Transportation.

There is a picture of the Kiwanis Miniature Train that operates Saturdays and Sundays from April to September in Herman Park from 1 to 5 p.m.. Herman Park is across Jackson Street from where my family lived from the 1920s. I used to ride that train a lot as a kid.

Even though there are no longer passenger train service to Goldsboro, there are still a lot of railroad tracks that have to be crossed, many still used for freight trains.

"Goldsboro's a railroad town, built on the tracks between Wilmington and Raleigh, named after Matthew Goldsborough, a railroad man. During the Civil War, Sherman had Goldsboro in mind when he burned through the South, hoping to get ahold of bustling tracks, He did."

People in Goldsboro loved these tracks, but hated them as well. One April night 91 years ago, a group of unnamed people got fed up with the dirty, noisy trains coming through the center of town, causing fires and sooting up everything and went out in the darkness and pulled the tracks up and stacked them in a neat pile in Center Street. They even have a DeRailebration Ceremony in honor of it.

Very true. of course, a big reason for Goldsboro's existence involved railroads. It made the city a target for General Sherman's Army during the Civil War when it was also part of the important Wilmington and Weldon Railroad which kept Lee's Army supplied.

Goldsboro is my home city, where I was born back 65 years ago. So, it is special to me. My family has lived there since around 1900 and up until the end of last year, were in the same house since the 1920s.

** The Slow Drags are a 6-piece alternative country band from Portland, Oregon, and are traveling the western United States, much of it on good old Route 66.

On May 10th, they stayed at "this cool old motor court last night called the Apache Motel" in Prescott, Arizona. "It will soon go the way of the Do-Do bird as it is being sold and then torn down. It's the wave of the future, more corporate blandness, less mom and pop character."

They essentially traveled Route 66 from California through to Arizona. "We got to see some of the old billboards, hotels, gas stations and shops in Williams and Flagstaff. It's pretty amazing to think of all the people that have traversed the route over the years, especially during the dust bowl.:"

I found these items in some old notes. Not sure what year they are from, though.

** May 6: WJBC AM, Voice of McLean County says the Sprague Super Service station has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).

** May 9: The Pontiac Daily Leader says the elevator work will begin at the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame Museum and the Pontiac War Museum. The west entrance will be the main entrance for the next three weeks.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

APRIL 7, FRIDAY-- Went to Crystal Lake and had breakfast at Steak 'N Shake in McHenry. Did some shopping and went to the Legion in Fox Lake.

APRIL 8, SATURDAY-- Breakfast buffet at St. John the Baptist in Johnsburg and presentation on Charles Lindbergh at the McHenry Area Historical Society meeting at the McHenry Savings Bank. Shopping afterwards and yardwork and sure enjoyed the 70 degrees temperature.

Went to Sunnyside and saw several sports games on TV and watched the Central Stone Rollers band for a set.

APRIL 9, SUNDAY-- Did my usual radio shows and then yardwork, Steak 'N Shake for lunch and Jim Sieg's jam session at Sunnyside.

I am driving through the western part of N.C., now, listening to the Classic Country station, windows down and enjoying 77 degree temperatures..

This is my fifth drive to and from North Carolina since May because of my mother's death, so I am getting quite used to the drive. As I get east of Greensboro, I lose WBRF and switch to 850 AM out of Raleigh, which plays a mix of oldies like our MeTV Radio back in the Chicago area.

I was to meet my nephew Andy's plane from Nashville at RDU and then drive him to Topsail Beach We drove I-40 to US-17 outside of Wilmington and took it most of the way to the beach. We got to Hamstead at 4:40 p.m. and the traffic going both ways was almost Raleigh Rush Hour bad.

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

MARCH 14-- The 66 Drive-In movie theater in Carthage, Missouri, has had a change of owners. As long as it stays open that's ok with me.

MARCH 15-- New fundraiser launched for The Mill in Lincoln, Illinois. It is slated to reopen as a museum on April 29. The new fundraiser is through Crowdrise Funraise. They hope to get between $3500 and $5,000.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

US Highway 1 was originally known as the Atlantic Highway and started out as a rough wagon road. US-1 was created piecemeal from existing roads, much the same as all early numbered U.S. highways.

There is a 40-foot wide stretch of the road built in the mid-1800s between Buberry and Neshaming creeks. Parts of it is known as the Byberry Pike, Benesalem Pike and Lincoln Highway. It became a limited access highway in 1921, lengthened in 1932 and rebuilt in 1971.

Monday, April 10, 2017

MARCH 10-- Woman stole $313,000 in Petrified Forest National Park entrance fees. She will serve one year and repay the money. She did this between 2010 and 2016 when she was responsible for accounting the entrance fees. Like I'm sure she'll pay the money back.

MARCH 11-- Radiator Springs cast will make an appearance in "Cars 3." Hope it's not just a brief one. I liked those townie cars. The more Radiator, the better, I always say.

The Route 66 News site also has a link to the movie characters and places real life and people that were their basis.

MARCH 8-- Exporting the buzz of Route 66 to England, the Outside Collective Group has made a big Route 66 mural in the side of The Hat and Feathers Pub on the corner of Clerkenwell and Goswell roads in London. The mural measures in at 52-feet high.

Route 66 places featured on it are Illinois' Paul Bunyan statue in Atlanta, a gas pump from the Soulsby gas station in Mt. Olive, the Brooks Catsup bottle in Collinsville, the Cozy Dog Drive-In mascot in Springfield, the Chicago Theatre marque in Chicago and an Illinois Route 66 shield.

Friday, April 7, 2017

MARCH 31ST: We went to Riverside Pub on the Fox River at Burton's Bridge (Ill-176) for lunch and then found four other places too crowded to go to and ended up at Sunnyside Tavern in Johnsburg.

APRIL 1ST: Actually got some yardwork done before going to the Fox Lake American Legion where we saw the duo Honeymooners from 3 to 6 p.m.. Where else ya gonna get entertainment on a Saturday afternoon on April Fool's Day?

Sunnyside Tavern was a madhouse and we ended up at half-Times where we watched Gonzaga win in their Final Four game. Came home and watched Carolina win a close one in Margaritaville while listening to the Ultimate Jukebox. The two Final Four contests today were some great games.

APRIL 2ND: Listened to Bob Stroud's Rock and Roll Roots on WDRV. he played "Look Through Any Window" by the Hollies. This was either the first or second 45 I ever bought. The other one was "Any Way You Want It" by the Dave Clark Five. Those two songs sure bring back lots of memories.

We then went to Sunnyside Tavern in Johnsburg where we saw the Blackhawks lose and then, at 4, Stevie G put on a solo performance of mellow rock.

From Terre Haute to I-74, we get on Indiana Highway 63, which is four land the whole way. We got gas at the Pilot Station on Indiana 63 and I-74 exit.for $2.20. Took the usual I-74 west past Champaign-Urbana to Illinois Highway 47 at Mahomet and then north to Woodstock.

We noticed that gas prices had also increased in Illinois from two weeks ago. Must be the pre-summer driving season gas gouge that Big Oil and the GRBs like to do on an annual basis.

I have always wanted to get something to eat at the Eagle Nest Restaurant in Forrest, Illinois, and this was the time to do it. The food was good and reasonable. I always like to eat at places I drive by so often and this is one of them.

The rest of the trip home, the temperature on the odometer continued to drop until it got to 32 degrees and we began seeing traces of snow. This is a big drop from yesterday's travel where the temperatures were as high as 78 degrees.

From the January 25, 2017, MidWeek (DeKalb County, Illinois) "Looking Back."

1917, 100 Years Ago.

"A representative of the Williamson Motor Company who deals in Dodge automobiles was here yesterday and says that the motor car dealers and makers are feeling the car shortage as badly as any other interest.

"The production of the factories is so large and the demand for the machines so great, while facilities for moving the machines in freight cars are so small that the flow of cars from factory to consumer is badly choked."

The growing popularity of the automobile.

The Problem Is Not the Factories, It is Getting the Cars to the Customers. --RoadDog

Thursday, April 6, 2017

We crossed the Ohio River at Henderson and now ere in Evansville, a city that sure has a lot of stoplights on its stretch of US-41. And they continue way north to the I-64 interchange. This is a town (along with Terre Haute) which could really use a bypass. But, one of these days I would like to spend some time looking at things around town.

But, once through the Evansville area, it is clear cruising, other than an occasional stoplight the whole way (except, of course, Terre Haute) until we got off at I-74. I had hoped to get gas in Terre Haute, home of Indiana State University, but it was $2.34 to $2.36, a bit higher than what we had been paying. We were getting mighty low on gas by the time we got to I-74.

Monday, April 3, 2017

A 6,400 square foot museum in downtown Pilot Mountain, North Carolina features one man's passion for everything petroleum.

Pilot Mountain is just south of Mt. Airy, N.C., which served as the basis for Andy Griffith's Mayberry. They would often go over to Mount Pilot on the show. Pilot Mountain is named for a very interesting mountain as well.

Some really great photos accompany the article as well.

This is the collection of Thornton Beroth, whose father was the Amoco distributor in nearby Winston-Salem. and also had the Amoco-branded Four brothers Food Stores.

The Pilot collection is one of te largest if not THE largest petroleum collections in the country.

Maybe If You Go You Might See Good Ol' Barn and Andy Come Over From Mayberry. --RoadDog

From the January 11, 2017, MidWeek (DeKalb County, Illinois) "Looking Back."

1917, 100 Years Ago.

"Gus Kirchner, proprietor of Kirchener's Drug Store buys a Ford with 7,230 Buffalo nickels. January 1, 1916, Mr. Kirchener started saving Buffalo nickels. Every Buffalo nickel that was presented at the store was saved. In one year's time he collected 7,568. With 7,230 he bought a Ford roadster.

The Pennyrile Parkway is limited access the whole way through the state and an easy ride. I am still amazed that it was built as a tollway, with the promise that once it was paid off, the tolls would be dropped. And, they REALLY did!!

The Bradford pear trees were blooming all along the road, and especially in and around Madisonville. This town could be named the Bradford Pear Capital of the United States. There are no prettier blooming trees anywhere, even the cherry trees. There is a Bradford Pear Lane in the city. I don't know if the numbers of these trees in this town were accidental or if they were planted on purpose. Either way, it is a striking view.

If I lived there I'd push for a Bradford Pear Festival this time of the year.

Bradford pear trees are among my favorite. Those gorgeous blooms in the spring and then they are generally the very last trees to lose their leaves in the fall and turn that beautiful russet red color.

Once you get to Henderson, Kentucky, at the northern end of the Pennyrile Parkway, you lose the limited access and hit some stoplights in a commercial district before crossing the Ohio River into Evansville, Indiana.

From the December 28, 2016, MidWeek (DeKalb County, Illinois) "Looking Back."

1966, 50 Years Ago.

"After months of detour problems Route 23 between Sycamore and Genoa was opened for traffic this morning. Grades have been lowered, the highway shoulders are broad and curves are gentler.

"Just south of Genoa where the highway crossed the Illinois Central tracks a newer and wider viaduct has been constructed."

This is a part of Illinois Highway 23 which i have written a lot about with its stretch between Sycamore and DeKalb being turned into a super four lane highway in 1941 (including the last post). This is the route we now use to get from home to DeKalb for NIU activities so as to avoid the Huntley Horror.